For love, grown cold or hot,
Is lust or friendship, not
The thing we have:
For that's a flame would die,20
Held down or up too high.
Then think I love more than I can express,
And would love more, could I but love thee less.
Agl. Leave me, for to a soul so out of tune,
As mine is now, nothing is harmony:25
When once the mainspring, Hope, is fall'n into
Disorder; no wonder if the lesser wheels,
Desire and Joy, stand still: my thoughts, like bees,
When they have lost their king, wander
Confusedly up and down, and settle nowhere.30
Enter Orithie
Orithie, fly, fly the room,
As thou wouldst shun the habitations
Which spirits haunt, or where thy nearer friends
Walk after death! Here is not only love,
But love's plague too, misfortune; and so high,35
That it is sure infectious.
Ori. Madam,
So much more miserable am I this way
Than you, that, should I pity you, I should
Forget myself: my sufferings are such,40
That with less patience you may endure
Your own, than give mine audience.
There is that difference, that you may make
Yours none at all, but by considering mine.
Agl. O, speak them quickly then: the marriage-day45
To passionate lovers never was more welcome,
Than any kind of ease would be to me now.
Ori. Could they be spoke, they were not then so great.
I love, and dare not say I love; dare not hope
What I desire, yet still too must desire;50
And, like a starving man brought to a feast,
And made say grace to what he ne'er shall taste,
Be thankful after all, and kiss the hand,
That made the wound thus deep.
Agl. 'Tis hard indeed;
But, with what unjust scales thou took'st the weight55
